Short On Strawberry Crates
My first interview in the
family lineup was with Tom Manthei, President of the Manthei Corporation since
1979. We spoke in the company boardroom
located in an upper level of the veneer plant.
The large window behind Tom’s chair overlooked the main floor of the
plant. Tom is an amiable guy, and like
his other family members, proud of his family heritage.
“It really began with our
fathers, Ted and Ernie Manthei,” Tom began.
“They were brothers who happened to meet two girls who were
sisters. So, the two brothers married
the two sisters. They were dirt poor
when they started out, doing any kind of work they could find to get by. After awhile they formed a partnership
growing beans. With a lot of hard work
the bean farming became successful.”
Ben Manthei, President of
Redi-Rock International, added to Tom’s narrative. “Ted and Ernie eventually left the
bean-growing business and began raising strawberries,” he explained. “And God began to bless them in such a way
where they couldn’t even buy enough boxes to package all the berries they were
producing.”
The shortage of packaging
for their product, quite unexpected, would eventually lead Ted and Ernie in a
surprising direction.
“They decided that making
their own berry boxes was the way to go,” Ben continued. So, they went looking for and eventually
found equipment they thought would do that,” Ben continued.
“They bought a piece of
equipment, a type of lathe,” Tom elaborated.
“But after Ted and Ernie got the lathe home, they discovered they
couldn’t use it to make crates; it was the wrong kind of machinery. So it just sat for a while in a barn and they
continued buying their crates.”
The equipment sat in
storage for almost two years. It was
business as usual for Ted and Ernie during that period until their story took a
turn that many would describe as just plain old good luck. The Mantheis would probably describe their
fathers stumbling across a man named Mr. Metzelburg as divine
intervention. Mr. Metzelburg sold veneer
for a living and he recognized the lathe the brothers had purchased.
“He told them they had purchased
some of the best veneer equipment in the industry,” Tom explained. “Metzelburg also had a friend in Wisconsin, a
man named Simon, who was a retired veneer lathe operator. He had Simon come to Petoskey and in about a
half-hour Simon had the machine adjusted, and had beautiful veneer flowing off it. So Metzelburg told them that if they could
keep turning out runs like that he’d buy all the veneer they could make.”
“They set up the equipment
and started running the veneer mill.
That was back in the mid to late forties,” Tom related.
Ted and Ernie Manthei put
their veneer machinery to good use, and their business quickly grew.
“My dad was a visionary
and he had always had a lot of ideas,” Tom explained. “My uncle, Ernie, was more of a manager type
so he could put wheels on the visions my dad came up with. As a team they worked well together.”
The old machinery generated
enough money for the brothers to equip the veneer mill with newer, more modern
machinery. The business continued to
grow and the brothers ran it for more than twenty years. They might have operated the mill even longer
if it was not for an unexpected tragedy.
© 2012 Philip Kassel
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